Friday, May 29, 2009

Sent in by an overseas/emerging markets reader called "Nicolien". No idea if that's a boy or girl name. The EU ought to earn its crust by standardising names so we know whether to bother typing something nice or not.

Would never pass UK health & safety. Stupid kids might start smearing the contents of real batteries over their oven chips. More shots of its features - including side windows to accurately judge remaining salt/pepper so the user can see if it's empty or just damp and blocked up - here.

The seat table clasp. Often your only source of amusement and entertainment,for an entire four-and-a-half hour train journey, before they invented mobile phones and MP3 players that can do video.

"This funny little face greets me every morning on my commute to work. It opens its mouth when you twist the nose, and seems to be very happy to stare at passengers in a German train all day. It's an electric train, so probably qualifies as a gadget. Oh, just in case there's no EXIF data - crappy old Rollei DR5100" - Dale.

Could this be an entire new battery from a different manufacturer, or simply an alternate colour scheme for mainland Europe? The blue/green colour scheme is an exhilarating design choice, regardless.

"I know you've featured the Sonic Alkaline Battery brand twicebefore, and that readers were waiting for more pictures of the same battery design at higher resolution - maybe 12000 x 8000 pixels in 2012 or something. But this is different! A different logo and 'colourway'."

"Different! And that means important for battery completists everywhere. I found this battery on the streets of Denmark - yes, I was outdoors. And I was riding along on a bicycle with my girlfriend (hopelessly boastful - I have been outdoors AND have a girlfriend). Anyway, I took these on my Nikon D40, I have just cleaned the sensor, which was a very tender and loving moment indeed. Jody (male reader - sorry to disappoint)" - Jody.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

BRACE YOURSELVES - submission from a female reader! As ever, she mentioned her boyfriend in paragraph #1 to keep you RABID HOUNDS in check, plus, judging by the terrible over-exposure of photo #2, she's more rich than into cameras. And she committed the ultimate sin of going through her man's cable/wires depository.

But still - confirmed female reader #6!

"I found this thinger in a box of cords my boyfriend keeps. With me being a girl and all, I have no idea what it is, and I'm sure I had no business going through his cord box in the first place."

"I took some photos with my Canon Rebel XT & Canon macro lens EF-S 60mm I just typed that last part to look fancy, like I said, I have no idea what I'm talking about here" - Alicia.

Stainless German engineering, for when you want to feel a bit safer walking home from the pub past the kebab shop where all the teenage gangsters hang out.

Sent in by a person who wants to be called "Some anonymous continental reader/Check the Leipzig papers". He supplied a caption about Morrissey and ghosts that made no sense whatsoever.

Talking of utterly lethal tools people in certain industries are allowed to use and carry legally, has anyone got a spare billhook in the garage? One of your grandad's blood-stained ones will do. It's for wood preparation when we're not in bed on the internet.

Lots of men. To help with the lifting and gardening. The one with the beard's probably got his own chain saw.

ABOUT:"Forces' favourite Nell McAndrew is waving off the last of 25,000 Christmas goodie boxes destined for the troops. Affectionately known as 'square stockings', a box will be delivered to every UK serviceman and woman on operational duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans this Christmas."

Wow! We're so EDGY and UNDERGROUND and ASPIRATIONAL we have been selected by a PR/marketing company to help whore-out its latest attempt at making an advert look like something other than an advert.

Look for the clever use of the phrase 'go live' in paragraph three. It's like we've been emailed by a real live urban teenager.

I've been reading your blog and thought you might be interested in checking out a viral for an online art gallery called Hang-Up Pictures? I thought it might make a good competition or news item for your readers. If you like it, we are also giving bloggers a 12.5% discount on any pics you might want if you agree host the viral....watch it here:

If you can name the three pictures that are hanging (and leaning) in Agent Provocateur model Jennifer Dawson's apartment, including the famous artists who created them, we'll enter you into a draw to win a signed limited edition of 20 Bast prints with first prize winning an additional �500. One runner-up will also receive a signed copy of Dolk Greande's Lovers handmade poster including an further �200 to spend as they so desire!

Sounds great! Thanks for giving us the chance to get in on the ground floor of this excellent piece of 'viral marketing'.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A robot in jail. This arrest closed the case of the 126 prostitutes found dead around Tokyo with odd indentations around their necks but no finger prints.

"There I was being all cool, bucking the digital trend and using other forms of instant photography when I stumbled across this, much to my delight (and confused looks from the non-nerdy one in the relationship). It is the empty cartridge from a pack of Fujifilm Mini Instax, and quite clearly shows it's cheeky little tongue sticking out.`I have also included a photo of what the box of the film looks like, the camera, and an example Instax photo using the empty pack as a handy frame, cos us what still use films also like to recycle stuff."

"In case you care I took the photos on an EOS 40D, which is alright I guess. I didn't scale them for you, although perhaps I should have, as they seem a little soft at 100%, but that's not helped by me using the 17-55 f2.8 wide open. If you're lucky there might be some EXIF data to get your liquid silk flowing, but I can't for the life of me remember if my raw converter keeps it when saving out to jpeg (I use Bibble for Linux, in case you're sad enough to care)" - Dave.